Thursday, September 5, 2013

Checkmate For Hell - Part 4: Move 8

This is part of an ongoing
series of blog posts, meant to be read in order. In the first
post, I introduced the concept of Universalism, and introduced the concept
that I would be defending my position through a series of "chess
moves". I mentioned that I believe I have checkmate in 2 moves, but
because a lot of questions would be left, I would use a series of further moves
to keep the king in checkmate while I systematically removed the rest of the
pieces from the board. I would highly suggest you read the previous parts
of this series before reading this one:Part
1: Moves 1-3Part
2: Moves 4-5Part
3: Moves 6-7

My dear children, I write
this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an
advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the
atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of
the whole world.

The word that is translated as “advocate” is parakletos, and a better translation might be “defense
attorney.” Now, many people have turned this into an image where Jesus
defends us in court with God the Father being the angry judge who demands
punishment. But Jesus has made many statements along the lines of John 10:30, where he tells us that he and the Father are one. So why would we think the Father has a judgmental, angry personality if Jesus is the complete
opposite?

Also, it’s interesting to note that the same word, parakletos, is used for the
Holy Spirit:

John 14:15-17If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will
give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever — the Spirit of
truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him.
But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

John 15:26-27When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the
Father—he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have
been with me from the beginning.

Jesus changes our image of God from an angry judge to a defense attorney. In John 8:1-11, we see Jesus acting both in the role of judge, and of defense
attorney when an adulterous woman is brought to him. In refusing to let
anyone else stone or condemn this woman, Jesus has taken on the role of the
defense attorney. Jesus does judge her when he tells her “Go now and
leave your life of sin.” He has pointed out her destructive behavior and
commanded her to turn from it – because God loves this woman! Love does
not condemn when we disobey – love is saddened because it knows the natural
consequences we will face for this destructive behavior. But rather than
condemn her, Jesus is standing on her side as a person, and the people he seems
most angry with are the stone throwers.

Later in, in Acts 9:1-22, Jesus is also Paul’s defense attorney. It is hard to imagine
a more hard-hearted person than one who would travel around stoning Christians
simply for being Christians. Paul was full of rage and addicted to
control. But Jesus showed love to him, even in his unrepentant state, and
softened his heart. Jesus loved and healed Paul – and what did Paul do to
deserve this? Nothing.

The good news of the Gospel of Jesus is not that God loves repentant sinners,
but that God loves unrepentant sinners.

Perhaps the most dramatic statement of Jesus as defense attorney rather than
prosecuting attorney is Jesus’ final words on the cross. The cross shows
us a juxtaposition of two realities: the depth of destruction caused by
unloving behavior, and the even greater depth of love in God’s response.
Rather than condemning those who subjected him to such a violent, cruel, senseless
death, Jesus says in Luke 23:34:

Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they are doing.

Jesus left many clues
throughout his ministry that God is our defense attorney, rather than our judge
or prosecuting attorney. In Luke 4:14-30, Jesus proclaims his mission using the words of Isaiah 61:1-2. But why are the people so angry with him to the point of
wanting to throw him off the edge of a mountain at the end of this story?
When Jesus quoted Isaiah 61:1-2, he skipped a sentence at the end of verse 2 – a verse about the day
of God’s vengeance - and then he goes on to speak of how prophets are not
accepted in their hometown, citing stories about the prophets showing God’s
mercy to a Sidonian and a Syrian. This angered the Jewish leaders because
the implication was that Jesus was removing the promise of vengeance towards
Israel’s enemies, and proclaiming God’s favor upon them.

Jesus also told parables that illustrated how God loves the unrepentant sinner. In the parable of the
prodigal son in Luke 15:11-30, Jesus is portraying an image of the worst kind of sinner to his
audience. This prodigal son, in demanding his inheritance before the father died, was basically saying to his father "I wish you were dead." Now, this story is often portrayed as if the prodigal son did
repent before returning to the father. Scholars, however, indicate that
the prodigal’s motive at this point is more likely self-interest – he’s hungry.
James Burtchaell writes:

The ruined and desperate son
heads home not because he is repentant but because he is starving. The
story never suggests that he has had a change of heart; only a change of
diet. He is still the same schlemiel [Yiddish equivalent of “jerk”] of a
son who comes scuffing up the road to the homestead.

Another indication of the
son’s unrepentant state is in verse 20 – while the son “was still a long way off,” the father saw him and ran
to him. These words are not meant to indicate geographic distance from
the father, but rather his emotional distance – his hard-hearted lack of
repentance. The father offers love and reconciliation to his son before
the son has truly repented and without ever asking for an apology or a change
of heart. Then, later on in the story, the father forgives the elder son
before he repents too. The elder son has also insulted the father by
arguing with him in public. But the father still promises him:
“everything I have is yours.”

But Jesus left more clues, because this parable was preceded by two more that offer the picture of God
loving the unrepentant sinner. In Luke 15:3-7, Jesus tells a story of a lost sheep, and in Luke 15:8-11 he tells a story of a lost coin. In each of these stories,
God is the one who takes the initiative and seeks out the unrepentant sinner
while they are still lost in their sin. It is this fact that truly gives
the other 99 sheep security – God’s determination to seek out the unrepentant
sinner assures the rest of us that He will never let go of us.

“But what about the passages where Jesus is referred to as the judge?”, some may say. The
tendency is to think that at the last judgment, Jesus goes through a radical
personality change when He becomes judge. But Jesus does not suffer from
multiple personality disorder - in Hebrews 13:8 we are told that “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
And what is a profound mystery to us in our humanity is that Jesus is the judge
who doesn’t judge: in John 8:15 Jesus tells us that he passes judgment on no one.

But wait, let me ask this: if Jesus is the judge AND defense attorney, how could we possibly lose that case?

Another example we could give of how Jesus was a defense attorney might seem strange at first – the one
example in scripture where we see Jesus visibly angry: at the temple when Jesus
drove out the money changers. Those with views of God as a wrathful God
have a hard time understanding what’s going on here – they think the anger
displayed is all about God being mad that business is being conducted in the
temple. But what is really going on here is that this business was
keeping common people from drawing near to God. Common people were not
being allowed to bring their own sacrifices, but were being told they had to
buy sacrifices from the business of the temple, and were not allowed to use
money from their culture but had to subject themselves to the unfair practices
of money-changers who would short change people. And so the religious
elite were constructing a wall between people and God, and this infuriated
Jesus – it’s the only example in the Bible of him being visibly angry.

In the time that Jesus lived,
it was common practice for people to curse their enemies. In Bath,
England, archaeologists have uncovered scores of tablets with prayers on them,
and these are referred to as “curse tablets”, because this was the most common
type of prayer. People would give the name of someone who hurt them, and
ask the gods to bring down vengeance. An eloquent example of this comes
from a curse tablet found in Rome:

I invoke you, holy angels and
holy names … tie up, block, strike, overthrow, harm, destroy, kill, and shatter
Eucherios the charioteer and all his horses tomorrow in the arena of
Rome. Let the starting-gates not [open] properly. Let him not
compete quickly. Let him not pass. Let him not make the turn
properly. Let him not receive the honors…. Let him not come from
behind and pass but instead let him collapse, let him be bound, let him be
broken up, and let him drag behind. Both in the early races and the later
ones. Now, now! Quickly, quickly!

But Jesus said:

Matthew 5:43-47
You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your
enemy.” But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who
persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He
causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the
righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what
reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if
you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do
not even pagans do that?

This was not conventional wisdom – it was a stark contrast to the common views of the day. And
there’s something you need to understand about Jesus. People often talk
about how some people “talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk.” But Jesus
taught by example. In his wonderful book “Who Is This Man ?: The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus”, John
Ortberg tells the story of how Jesus taught the principle of loving your
enemies by example:

One day Jesus drops a bomb. It’s early in his ministry, things are going well, and he has drawn
a crowd so large that he must teach from a boat in a lake so all can
hear. That evening he says to his disciples, "Let’s go over to the
other side."

That’s the bomb. The "other side" is something of a technical
term. Jesus is not talking just about geography. The other side of
the lake was the region of Decapolis, the "ten cities." This
was largely enemy territory. Its inhabitants were pagan people.

Ortberg then explains that Decapolis is where the seven nations of Canaan settled, and how their pagan
religions exalted violence and sexuality and greed. In this culture, the
pig - which was regarded as unclean in Israel - was viewed as sacred and used
as part of their worship. The Jews actually believed that Satan lived on
the "other side", and no one would go to the other side for fear of
the consequences - especially not a rabbi. Also, Decapolis was a center
of Rome's power - home to a military base of over six thousand soldiers.
Ortberg goes on:

Jesus casually suggested one
day, "Let’s go over to the other side."

What was he doing? Didn’t he know that the kingdom is for our
side? It’s almost as if he didn’t know that this is the other
side. It’s almost as if he thought it’s his side. It’s
almost as if he thought every side belonged to him, or that he belonged to
every side. It’s almost as if he thought that all the peoples of the
earth were now going to be blessed through him – even the seven nations of
Canaan.

So Jesus and the disciples go
to the "other side." What they find there was quite unlike what
had become Jesus' usual reception of large crowds. Instead, they found
one lone demonically afflicted man. This man runs to Jesus and kneels at
his feet - the demon possessing him demanding to know what Jesus wants.
Jesus asks the demon its name, and the response is heavy on the symbolism:
Legion. Legion was the name the Romans - the oppressors of the Jews -
used for a company of soldiers, and this area housed one of the largest of
Rome's legions. The spirits asked to be sent into a herd of pigs - again,
heavy on the symbolism. In 1 Maccabees, Jews had been commanded to eat
pork by Roman soldiers and were slaughtered when they refused.
Furthermore, the symbol of the Roman Legion in that area was a boar's
head. So the pig, as well as the name "Legion", were both
symbols of the oppression of the Jews. Jesus casts the demon into the
herd of pigs, which rushes to its destruction - a symbolic reversal of the
story in 1 Maccabees through the liberation of a man from the "other side".

When the people of the area come and witness the scene, their response provides some very interesting
psychological analysis. Here was a man who had reportedly been causing a
lot of trouble – the story tells us that he had been chained before and had
broken his chains in an extraordinary feat of strength. You’d think the
townspeople would thank Jesus for taking care of their problem, and maybe even
do as the Jews and bring him more of their sick for healing. But instead,
they begged him to leave. Ortberg explains:

Why? Because he had power, but he wasn’t one of them. He was from the wrong side. And
he might use his power to hurt them.

Jesus agreed to go. The man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus, who up to
now had been telling everyone, "Follow me," said no. He said,
"Go tell your story."

Imagine this man’s feeling when that boat rowed away and he wasn’t in it.
But he did what Jesus asked. He told people in Decapolis how much Jesus
had done for him. "And all the people were amazed."

Here’s the rest of the story. Jesus returned to Decapolis a short time
later. This time great crowds came to see him. "They ran
throughout that whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they
heard he was. And wherever he went – into villages, towns or country side
– they placed the sick…. They begged him to let them touch even the edge
of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed."

In other words, the seven nations of Canaan were praising the God of
Israel. The first time Jesus went over to the other side, nobody was home
except for one pathetic wretch. The second time he came, it was one of
the most dramatic responses in all of the New Testament. People were more
receptive to Jesus here than any other place he had ever gone.

They had heard that this Jesus cared about someone on "their side.”

Now, when you hear this story, do you really think that the God whom Jesus represents is planning to
throw a majority of the people of this world into eternal conscious torment?

Jesus taught by example. He told us to love our enemies in Matthew 5:43-48, and then he repeatedly showed us how to do that. And then,
in verse 48 of the passage, he said:

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

He said “be perfect”, right after talking about loving enemies. And he implied that the heavenly
Father is perfect at practicing this. This suggests that, rather than being infinitely offended by every petty offense as some would ask us to believe (see "infinite punishment to serve a finite crime" in Chess Move #3), God is infinitely merciful. Or in other words, as the Bible says, God's love and mercy endure through the ages (Ps. 106:1; 107:1; 118:1; 138:8; and over and over in Ps. 136).Robert Ingersoll once said:

They say that when God was in Jerusalem he forgave his murderers, but
now he will not forgive an honest man for differing with him on the
subject of the Trinity. They say that God says to me, "Forgive your
enemies." I say, "I do;" but he says, "I will damn mine." God should be
consistent. If he wants me to forgive my enemies he should forgive his. I
am asked to forgive enemies who can hurt me. God is only asked to
forgive enemies who cannot hurt him. He certainly ought to be as
generous as he asks us to be.

I wonder if God really is not as generous as He asks us to be? If Jesus said that the Father was perfect right after talking about loving enemies, do you really think there's a time limit on that? Do you really think that perfectly practicing the act of loving your enemies
involves throwing them into, or even allowing them to endure eternal conscious
torment if there is any possibility of sparing them from this fate?

About Me

I am married to a gorgeous woman
who makes life beautiful. I have three children who are the loves of my
life. I am learning more about love every day. My family and I moved
to Chattanooga in December 2010 and are loving it! We've been attending
The Vineyard and are feeling like we are more a part of that church
than we have of any church in a long time. I am a music snob which
means that I hate any radio station that plays just hits resulting in
the same dozen or so songs repeated every hour. I reject the politics of persecution and oppose absolutist, demonizing rhetoric. I am a geek/nerd.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 NLT

If
I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love
others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had
the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and
possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move
mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave
everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast
about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.